[David9694]

One for the football fans here. Glimpsed this story on the front of The Sun one day this week.  Trigger warning –  I don’t understand professional football at all – the deeply felt allegiances to essentially a money-making machine with a town’s name on it, and the fishy activities of Sepp Blatter at FIFA a few years ago.

I had a look at the lyrics to the 1996 song – my takeaway is “a bit whiney”, with its references to “30 years of hurt”, i.e. from the time, the only time the England team won the tournament to when the song came out. A lot of reflection on past failure and disappointment, mixed with its catchy, rather hopeless optimism.  I would ditch it if this was my show, if the story is remotely true, of course.

You enter a four-yearly contest, with 30-40 other teams also trying to win, how does you winning one time in 21 instances get played as “hurt”? If it is hurt, why put yourself through it?

Is it still Gareth Southgate? when we had all the taking the knee (like blink and you’ll miss it) stuff, I had a sense of an authentic leader and of the players like Marcus Brigstock devoting themselves to playing the game well and rather less of the excess that stems from the Goerge Best era. On that basis, I wish them well in Quatar, whenever it is. 

 

Topic

[Rendel Harris]

SteveSlow wrote:

How would we go about getting the fans to sing that classic Tom Robinson song ‘sing if youre glad to be gay!’

I was very proud of rugby a few years ago when Billy Vunipola was quite rightly warned by Saracens and the RFU over his support for Israel Folau’s homophobic hate remarks; when he came on as a sub against Bristol at Ashton Gate the crowd gave him a resounding raspberry and the PA system played “It’s Raining Men (Hallelujah)”.

[SteveSlow]

How would we go about getting

How would we go about getting the fans to sing that classic Tom Robinson song ‘sing if youre glad to be gay!’

[Gus T]

You believed the front page

You believed the front page of the Sun, astounding.

Do you want to buy the Humber Bridge? 

[exilegareth]

Spot on – it’s a made up

Spot on – it’s a made up story that belongs in the same file as 80s classics like councils banning Baa Baa Black Sheep, and the perennial nonsense about councils cancelling Christmas in favour of Winterval or some such cobblers. Anyone who gives this tripe any credence  deserves a good kick in the nads, or maybe a special punishment of a few hours having to watch the laughably mislabelled comedy of the execrable’David ‘I used to be a racist but one apology makes me a moral arbiter now’ Baddiel until they die of boredom while waiting for a joke to turn up.

[Simon_MacMichael]

the little onion wrote:

Anyway, why would football be “coming home” to England? That’s the arrogance of the English.

Because the rules of what became association football were drawn up in England, and the song was written specifically for England hosting the European championships in 1996, so in those senses football was “coming home”.

I’m no fan of the English national team (I am still traumatised by the minute that elapsed between McAllister missing his penalty and Gascoigne scoring *that* goal) but so far as the song goes, I don’t think it’s arrogance.

[mdavidford]

Awavey wrote:

I dont know how true the story is or not

Not at all, apparently – appears to have been a complete invention. The reason for mentioning the ‘official song’ bit was that if the Sun can’t even get that basic detail right, just perhaps, the rest of the story shouldn’t be given too much credence either.

But in any case, you may be taking my comment too seriously. Personally, I don’t care one bit whether they play it or not – it was just an excuse to make a sarcastic swipe at people who think they ‘ought’ to have won something in thirty years by pointing out that it’s now nearly twice that. And at myself for getting on a bit.

[mdavidford]

I’m not sure how ‘snowflakes’

I’m not sure how ‘snowflakes’ would ‘cancel it for Qatar’ anyway – surely they’d all have melted long before they got the chance?

[Awavey]

but they can stop playing it

but they can stop playing it at England games in the pre match build up as part of the “official approved songlist for England games” and the issue was apparently it might offend other nations…these are decisions clearly made by people who sit behind desks and never go to the terraces to watch England games if they think thats the most offending thing England fans sing.

I dont know how true the story is or not, its just a story I dont have a hard time believing the FA have seriously considered and not because the song is nearer its own 30th anniversary, than the last major trophy the team won.

[Rendel Harris]

“Football’s coming home” is

“Football’s coming home” is massively appropriate for Qatar, it’s going to a repressive dictatorship that gained the tournament through unprecedented bribery in order to “sportwash” their human rights abuses to play in stadia built by migrant indentured workers – effectively slave labour – large numbers of whom have died in the process and is being played at a totally innappropriate time of year (November 21 – December 18) and all these issues are being ignored because it will make those at the top of the game obscene amounts of money. What more appropriate homecoming for modern footy?

[mdavidford]

the little onion wrote:

I don’t believe for a minute it is true

It’s not – not least because it hasn’t been ‘the official song’ since 1996.

I think the real issue is one of scansion – “fifty-six years of hurt” just doesn’t really work. Either that or people just want it binned off because working out what it needs updating to just makes us feel old. 

[David9694]

I hate say it, but I find

I hate say it, but I find myself agreeing with Pier Morgan here: “The song is all about wallowing in 30 years of hurt and pain at not winning anything, how can anyone say it is arrogant.”  

Gazza: “It would be like saying we can’t wave St George’s flags anymore. This woke nonsense has no place in football. It’s just a great song.”

Woke nonsense in football – fancy!  So I’m back to ‘bit whiney’, rather than offensive to the competition? Without punching at opponents below the belt, isn’t some expression of friendly rivalry in order?

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/18463486/footballs-coming-home-faces-world-cup-axe-offends/

My bad: Marcus Rashford I was thinking of, of course.

 

[the little onion]

It is a made up story aimed

It is a made up story aimed at getting people riled up and buying newspapers. I don’t believe for a minute it is true, not least because the FA can’t ‘cancel’ a song they don’t own.

 

Anyway, why would football be “coming home” to England? That’s the arrogance of the English.

[pockstone]

I hope Marcus Brigstocke is a

I hope Marcus Brigstocke is a better footballer than he is a comedian if he’s representing England in the World Cup.

[Author]

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